Whois Lookup is an easy and free way to trace the owner of a website.

Privacy isn't something that comes to mind while thinking about the internet. You can find almost anything if you know where to look. The Whois Lookup makes it easy to find out who owns the particular website you're interested in. All you have to do is type in the web address you want the information on and if it wasn't registered privately, you are privy to the owner's full name, address, phone number and email address. Yes it is that simple to get someone's private information.

Originally the Whois system was used as a method a system administrator could use to lookup the particular information they needed in order to contact other IP addresses or other domain administrators. However, some registrars are not careful to ensure the contact details the user gives are correct.

One of the main issues with the Whois lookup is that of privacy. The registrants contact details are readily accessible to anyone over the internet for almost all the top level domains. Some registrars do offer private registrations, then only the contact information of the registrar is shown, but under ICANN rules the registrar company then is the legal owner of the domain.

Another problem with the easily accessible Whois information is the persons contact email. This is exactly what the spammers are after when they harvest plain text email addresses from Whois requests. Spammers use an email harvesting software that can collect hundreds of email addresses in minutes.

Even though there are privacy issues, spam issues and a host of other issues, the Whois lookup can be looked upon as an important tool for law enforcement. Officers who are investigating violations such as Spam and Phishing can use it to help track down the owners of the domain names. It is of course frustrating for the officers when they realize the Whois records are full of false information.